SPRINGFIELD – If Bob Roberts hears of a church member going out of town, he always inquires where they are going.
“We have church plant partners in San Diego, Washington DC, and even Oahu, Hawaii so I like to tell them where they can visit one of our partners for Sunday worship and encourage them,” said Roberts, minister of missions at Second Baptist Church here.
Through Second’s “Foundations for the Future” offering, the church has helped support 42 new church plants since 2010. In the last 12 months, the church has helped 12 new churches launch.
“We once had a ‘Financial Freedom’ offering that we collected to become debt-free as a church,” Roberts said. “Once that goal was accomplished and because people were used to giving, we came up with ‘Foundations’ so we could give more to missions and do more for the Kingdom outside the walls of the church.”
Red Tree Church here is one of the young church plants who has partnered with Second. They meet in an elementary school and, now in its fourth year, Pastor Chad Mathes said Red Tree had 178 in attendance last Sunday.
“With confidence I can say that we would have never planted Red Tree without Second Baptist’s support,” Mathes said. “And they continue to maintain that partnership relationship though we’ve completed the three year commitment for financial support. They’ve been good to us, as for as mentoring and letting us borrow items. It’s awesome to see how God is advancing the Kingdom on a local, national and global scale through the people at Second.”